


Like brothers on a hotel bed

by DragonHeartedGirl



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonHeartedGirl/pseuds/DragonHeartedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time you notice it, the sun is setting on a Christmas evening outside.  Every single contour of his face, every small detail, is visible to you, seeming to be highlighted by the dying light that peers through the window.</p>
<p>Merlin looks older.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like brothers on a hotel bed

**Author's Note:**

> It's past 5 am where I live and here I am, posting what was meant to be a quick Christmas drabble but turned out to be 300 words longer than expected. Thanks for Death Cab for Cutie and their ridiculously beautiful song for (kind of) inspiring me.  
>  Anyway, first of all, I'd like to apologise for any grammar-related mistakes, because English is not my first language and, well, trying to proofread at 5 am with a sleep-clouded mind is not the greatest of ideas. Also, I haven't written any fanfiction in nearly one year; you've been warned.  
> The whole story is told through Arthur's point of view. A lot of cheesiness and contemplation awaits. Read with caution.

The first time you notice it, the sun is setting on a Christmas evening outside.  Every single contour of his face, every small detail, is visible to you, seeming to be highlighted by the dying light that peers through the window.

Merlin looks older.

No, not older as he did when you finally rose from the lake, with a wrinkled face and long, white hair. The guise of Drogon has long been left aside, and he’s now exactly as you remember him, with knife-edge sharp cheekbones, a smooth face, dark hair cut short. The effects of aging haven’t reached him, at least not physically, not like they do to everyone else.

But his soul – it hits you like a stone thrown from a catapult, how you can suddenly see the way centuries have been weighing on his soul. You can see it (the pain, the sorrow, the emptiness) reflected all over his face; fresh scars, still healing. Blood shed through decades and decades have colored the skin under his eyes with a permanent rusty red. Empires have crumbled over him, taking away loved ones (you weren’t the first, you weren’t the last), creating frown lines on his forehead on the collapse. There’s a permanent tiredness on his face that you don’t recall being there before – you can’t pinpoint exactly where it’s written, but you can read it as clearly as one of those obnoxious neon signs that are so common in the 21st century. You don’t recall his eyes being this deep either, nor this melancholic. And yet…

In the depths of it, you can see that familiar light. It’s as familiar as the restlessness that still goes hand with hand with that seemingly chronic exhaustion. It’s mischievous and bold, as though you’re both back to the very first day, young and naïve and blissfully unaware of what is yet to come. And it’s loving, too, so loving you feel as if you could sink in it. Back then, you could never have guessed, but  _this_ , this exact light, was what you missed when Merlin disappeared.  _This_  is why you would feel like you’d been left in a place cold and dark, no solid ground under your feet, whenever he wasn’t there.

The day when the sun is setting on a Christmas evening outside is not the first time you notice it, but the first time you realize all the other nuances to it. Merlin is still the same as he was centuries ago. And he still looks like it, as well – like home. Although countless years of rainstorms and blizzards may have worn out the stones of its walls, he’s still the house you’ve always inhabited.

Except Merlin is not a house – he’s a fucking fortress,  _your_  fortress. He’s a palace like not even the Sun King he taught you about could have dreamed of. He’s the temple you worship at. He is all this, and more, and… you must have been staring for a good half an hour now, because he turns and laughs, a mix of coyness and amusement, before asking why you’re looking at him like that. You don’t think you’d be able to vocalize the answer, so you just kiss him, as if you’ve spent a millennium without seeing him, as if you’ve waited a lifetime to be able to share this bed with him (because, damn it, you have,  _you have_ ).

The first time you notice the last thing you notice, the sun has already fully set on a Christmas evening outside: the familiar laughter lines he used to have on the corner of his eyes have now nearly faded away for good. You decide on the spot that you must carve new ones.


End file.
